letters to my class

Dear Humans,

When I was a kid I never kept the pickles on my hamburger. I’d pick them off immediately and there they’d sit on the back half of my McDonald’s clamshell container until my dad snatched them up and ate them.

But this weekend I ate a hamburger and I left the pickles on. And they were those big, fat, juicy pickles. When I saw those thick pickles I thought about taking them off, but then I decided to just go for it. And the pickles were my favorite part of the hamburger.

Things change in life. Things you’ll never expect. You think the world is one way and before you know it, you’ll be living a completely different life. Or at least a life with the pickles still on your hamburger.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Often when I ask kids why we read, they tell me they read so they become a better reader. Which is true. But we don’t apply that logic to very many other things. We don’t drive to become better drivers; we do it to get from A to B. We don’t cook to become better cooks; we do it to fill our bellies. 

And we don’t only read to become better readers; we do it to think better thoughts about the world we’re in. 

Because life is full of big questions, and we need to figure out good answers to them. Big questions like how humans should be, how change happens, how language works, and what is true. If you’re not coming up with better answers to those questions while you’re looking in a book, then you’re not really reading.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I’m not sure how closely you watch the news. When I was a kid I’d catch snippets of it: Tom Brokow’s voice as I was shuffling through football cards, Mikhail Gorbachev staring back at me from the cover of Time magazine on the coffee table. 

And it was all a blur. I wasn’t sure what was happening (or where it was happening), or, most of all, why it was happening.

And now, as Russia invades Ukraine and I’m scrolling through news articles on my iPhone, I get a similar feeling. I know more history, and that makes things clearer, but knowing history doesn’t always prepare us to understand the events that will shape history.

So it doesn’t get easier. And complexity and uncertainty are the rule. But when things are difficult–like making sense of our world–it means they’re worth it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

Congress just passed a law that makes Camp Amache, in southeastern Colorado, a national historic site. Camp Amache was a relocation camp for Japanese-Americans during WWII. After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, many Americans feared that Japanese-Americans would side with Japan. 

So Japanese-Americans were forced from their homes and businesses into relocation centers all across the interior American west. Even though many of them were American-born citizens. Even though many of them would fight for the United States in World War II.

Today we look back at those fearful actions with embarrassment and shame.

But the impulse that drove those actions–fear, concern for our own safety at the expense of other people’s welfare–are still with us. And they can still lead us to make big mistakes. Remembering our history, especially when we mess up, is one way to stop that from happening.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I lost my house keys the other night. They fell off the ring that connected them to my car keys and when I got out of my car and walked up to my locked door, I realized they were gone.

So early the next morning I retraced my steps. I went back to the place I was the night before and literally walked my path again. And, just as I gave up and walked back to my car, the clouds parted and a holy light shone down on my keys sitting in the parking lot.

The universe tests us with lost things. When we get to moving too fast, the universe plucks our keys out of our pocket to get us to slow down, hit the rewind button, and think about where we’ve been. 

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

I remember watching figure skating during the Lillehammer Winter Olympics 28 years ago. You didn’t hear the word quadruple very often. You heard a lot of triple–triple toe loop, triple axel–but skaters revolving their bodies 1440 degrees in the air (while on ice skates) was pretty rare.

Yesterday, Nathan Chen won the gold medal by performing five quadruple jumps (some of them combined with triple jumps). He landed them all. Athletes get faster and stronger and better trained. That requires great sacrifices and we’re not always sure if it’s worth it, but greatness doesn’t come easy.

It’s tempting to look around the world and see things getting worse. Some of our oldest stories are about how we used to live in some mythical, vanished paradise. But it’s important to remember the ways the world is getting better as well. 

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

We’ve been reading about the Boston Massacre. And maybe you’re wondering the use of studying a skirmish that took place 252 years ago. Especially since there have been untold skirmishes, battles, tragedies, and events since that snowy day outside the Boston Custom House.

It’s because the most important part of studying history is learning how history is made and remembered. Because the Boston Massacre didn’t become the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. It took years of remembering and re-remembering (and misremembering) what happened. And that history was put towards certain causes. Because history is often a process of creating heroes and villains and confirming beliefs, not just retelling what happened.

And we still do that history-making today. And we’ll do it far into the future. So it’s important that you know how it’s done. And you see the reasons behind why we remember what happened the way that we do.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

There’s been a lot of news about censorship and book bans. Some school districts are removing books from classrooms and libraries for various reasons.

And it’s understandable. Books are dangerous and scary things. Books have scared the bejeezus out of me. They’ve told me that the way I’ve grown up to see the world is not the only way to see it and sometimes people do ugly things to each other. 

Those are scary things! Especially if you only want the world to be one way. 

But my hope is that you’re not that kind of person. My hope is that you’re up for a little bit of discomfort–the cold water of reality splashed on your face. If so, I’ve got just the books for you.

Dear Humans,

I used to pay $10 each month for a service that would stream nearly any song that’s ever been recorded directly to my phone. And that seemed like a pretty cool thing. Anything I could think to ask for was there at my fingertips.

And though I noticed I was playing a lot of songs, I wasn’t really listening to them. Or at least I wasn’t listening very deeply. They’d play in the background. And if you’re not really listening, music all starts to sound the same. 

So this weekend I ended my subscription and started listening–really listening–to my old CDs.

When things are easier to get they become less valuable. That’s a proposition that has proved pretty hardy throughout human history. And it’s especially true for music and art–things that are best seen as a gift from one person to another, not a commodity.

Sincerely,

Mr. Curt

Dear Humans,

This week was the Chinese New Year. So we learned a bit about traditions and we also learned about the Chinese Zodiac. And we wondered if our own Chinese Zodiac animal said anything true about ourselves and our personalities.

This week also had Groundhog Day. A supposedly eternal groundhog emerges from a tree stump and a bunch of dudes in top hats and tuxedos pretend to hear the groundhog’s predictions about the continuation of winter. 

These things require a suspension of disbelief. We know they’re not scientifically true. But it sure is fun to play around with them and make meaning with them. Sometimes we like to think we’re serious people engaged in an eternal search for the truths of nature. And then we find a groundhog whispering in our ear. 

But that too is part of the search.